© 2023 Olga López
© 2023 Urantia Association of Spain
Newsletter of the Urantia Association of Spain
Light and Life — January 2023
¶ In this number
- Editorial – January 2023
- Works – our recommendations of the month
- History and teachings – Chronicle of the life of Jesus
- A Children’s Guide to The Urantia Book: Jesus at Ten
- Other spiritual growth books
- Video – our recommendation of the month
- Navigating through life – Change costs
- My favorite paragraph
- Urantia Questionnaire: Marisé Cantero
- About the Light and Life newsletter
¶ Editorial – January 2023
M. José Sánchez Santamaría
The Image of God
José enters the house, tired from a day’s work in Sepphoris. His greeting, as always, is laconic. He is not a man of many words. María responds as usual: a word of welcome, a question about her day, and when he has approached the stone table, then a gesture that, in that atmosphere of laughter and childish chatter, establishes a current of complicity between them. : a hand that rests on the shoulder, an affectionate pat on the head, a rag with cold water to cool off and clean the dust from the road accumulated on that still young face, but which is beginning to show the first furrows.
The truth is that, even if they wanted to talk more, they would have a difficult time with Jesus in the middle. This boy speaks volumes. Ask and answer frequently. He tells everything that has happened to him: that today he was with the shepherds looking for the sheep that was lost yesterday and that fell into a well with a broken leg; that this year’s harvest is going to be very good because Zacarías’ grandson told him so… “This kid talks to everyone, when do you help your mother?”, José murmurs, wanting to seem angry but, deep down , smiling at his joy and self-confidence.
José blesses the table and dinner begins, everyone enjoying the bread and lentils. A small family that, like so many others, enjoys the joys and laughter of the boys and girls who eat from the same pot. Jesu s’ chatter stops, he rests his head on the table and falls asleep. María is leading her siblings to the nearby mat and José stares at that fascinating son. He intuits it different, special. He recalls so many moments in which he has been surprised and admired by his way of seeing God. Like that time when they talk about what happened to the neighbor Tamar, sick with leprosy, and they threw her out of town with stones. After a few moments walking together up the hill Jesus asks:
“Is she a leper because God is angry with her?”
Joseph does not know what to answer, but Jesus, as always, answers his own questions:
“No, God can’t be that cruel.
José looks at him surprised and then says to the child:
Yes, God is good.
Jesus smiles, confirming their intuitions, and they continue walking in silence. After eating together, he returns to the fray with another question:
“Dad, how good is God?”
-What do you mean?
“Is he good like the rabbi?” the boy asks.
“He’s better than the synagogue rabbi,” José answers without hesitation, recalling certain events that he prefers not to air.
“Is he as good as a shepherd when he takes care of the cattle?”
“No, Jesus; I think God is better than a shepherd–Jose smiles.
“Is God good like a father?” Jesus asks.
Joseph does not hesitate for a moment, for he knows that he himself is a sinner and often feels so unworthy that God cannot be like him.
“No, Jesus, God is better than a father.
The boy is silent and then laughs.
José looks at him and wonders what will come next…
“Dad, God can’t be any nicer than you.”
He says it without joking, with the seriousness that sometimes appears in his deep, smiling eyes and in them he sees admiration, gratitude, trust, love… José feels a lump in his throat and his eyes fill with tears. He turns quickly, because he doesn’t want his son to see him like this.
And now, at night, while his son sleeps, he remembers that scene. He feels the surprise again, the shudder to realize that when this child talks to him about God, everything seems different and even he feels better. Then exhaustion overcomes him and he sobs silently for everything he doesn’t understand, for everything that has fallen by the wayside and for everything he intuits. Once the children are in bed, María approaches him, sits next to him, caresses his wet cheeks and, silently, hugs her husband and also looks at her sleepy eldest son.
How difficult it is to talk about God! Anyone who wants to do this needs to know that they are probably going a little off the rails, and God probably smiles at our attempts to understand and describe it.
¶ Works – our recommendations of the month
Talk on meditation and worship (Mariano Pérez)
In this work, which was offered as a presentation in a virtual room, the author expands on what he expressed in a previous work on prayer and worship, only in this case it focuses exclusively on meditation and worship . According to the author, these two concepts go hand in hand, and he is in charge of exposing it in this talk, which has two supporting PowerPoint presentations: the first, on worship, is available here; and the second, on meditation, can be downloaded here.
The Supreme Being and previous concepts (Rafael Mondéjar)
At the beginning of this work, the author tells us: «When I began to find out about the existence of the Supreme Being, I had the idea that it was a somewhat complex reality, but when I delved a little deeper, that initial complexity grew in me until reach the limits of enormous confusion, because what at first seemed to me to be a single deity, I understood that, although it is indeed so or will be in the distant future, the truth is that in an almost endless present it seems to be three different deities: the Supreme Being, the Supreme Almighty, and Supreme God.” And it is precisely to unravel the differences between these three deities that the author dedicates himself in his exhaustive and detailed work.
Where are the Daughters of God? (Marion Steward)
As the author tells us: «The Universe is overflowing with Sons of God, beginning with the Eternal Son, continuing with all the descending Sons, Paradise Sons of God (Creator Sons), Magisterial Sons and Trinity Instructor Sons; then by the Sons of God of the Local Universes - Melchizedek Sons, Vorondadek Sons, Lanonandek Sons, Life Carriers and numerous unrevealed orders of Trinitized Sons. Then we have the ascending Sons—Father-fused, Son-fused, and Spirit-fused, mortals, evolutionary seraphim, ascending Material Sons, midwayers, and personalized Adjusters.” But what about the Daughters? As a result of this question, the author develops an interesting explanation of how developers approach gender differentiation.
The search for happiness in light of the teachings of The Urantia Book (Olga López)
The work begins with these observations by the author: «We live in times in which it seems that happiness is the ultimate goal of our lives, although its search has been a constant in the history of humanity… But is happiness really our goal in life? Is there only one way to get it? Can happiness be found in material things? Precisely to answer these questions, the author looks at the book’s teachings and reviews the references made about happiness.
¶ History and teachings – Chronicle of the life of Jesus
JOURNALISTIC ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS ACCORDING TO THE URANTIA BOOK
We present to you the following installment of the chronicles of the life of Jesus, which on this occasion contains what the revelators tell us in paper 140 (The ordination of the twelve). Inside the PDF you will see a button from where you can access the text of the paper from the Urantia Foundation website.
¶ A Children’s Guide to The Urantia Book: Jesus at Ten
We continue to review the secondary work A Children’s Guide to The Urantia Book, by Mary Livingston. This is the next chapter, dedicated to the time when Jesus was ten years old, and it begins like this:
“The second sister of Jesus was born. They called her Martha. The children of Joseph and Mary were six, as follows: Jesus, James, Miriam, Joseph, Simon, and Martha. The house consisted of one large room. But José built another room next to the house. This room served as a workshop during the day and as a bedroom at night. He also made a small carpentry bench for Jesus. For the first time, Jesus had his own tools. He often worked in the bank and became very skilled in making yokes for animals.”
Download the entire chapter in PDF format
¶ Other spiritual growth books
Heaven is not the last stop (Sheila Keene-Lund)
Sheila Keene-Lund, the author, is a veteran reader of The Urantia Book who in this, her first work, reviews the content of the book in an introductory way in a very entertaining way and compares what is stated from the different branches. of human knowledge. But not only that: he also shares his personal journey in search of the truth, as well as the recipes for living life with purpose and according to the book’s teachings. It is undoubtedly a very well planned and exposed introduction, which can lead the seekers of Truth to the original source: The Urantia Book.
¶ Video – our recommendation of the month
¶ The phenomena of reincarnation explained in light of The Urantia Book (Urantia Writings Studies)
The subject of reincarnation is always controversial among the readers of The Urantia Book, because despite the fact that the book’s teachings are very clear about it (reincarnation does not exist as a return to this world in another body), it is true that there are phenomena that seem to have no explanation without considering the reincarnation hypothesis, such as children who remember past lives. With the information and overview that the book’s teachings offer us, the author goes on to propose in this video some interesting explanations for these phenomena that are well worth considering.
¶ Navigating through life – Change costs
We can see in our human nature that change costs us, we see how many people do not make a change and seek to avoid it until things get so ugly and they feel so bad that they can no longer continue as usual.
This is an observable and certain point at the individual level and at the social level. We have to suffer a crisis, a trauma, a loss, an illness or a tragedy to begin to analyze who we are, what we are doing, how we are living, what we are feeling and what we believe or what we know to really change.
It often takes the worst possible situation for us to begin making positive changes for our health, relationships, career, family, and future. But the message is: why wait for that to happen?
We can learn and change through a state of pain and suffering, or evolve by living in a state of happiness and inspiration.
Most of us do the first. To choose the second, we must be aware that the change will surely bring some discomfort, some inconvenience, an alteration in our usual routine and a stage of ignorance.
Most of us already know the uncomfortable feeling of being a beginner at something. As children we go through several stages until we learn to read fluently. When we were learning to play the violin or the drums, our parents must have wished, with their heads like a bass drum, that they could put us in a soundproof room. We can also think of the poor patient whose blood is drawn by a medical student who, despite having the required knowledge, still lacks practice.
Assimilating knowledge (knowing) and then gaining practical experience applying what you have learned until the skill becomes second nature (knowing how) is surely the process you followed to acquire most of the faculties that are now part of you (knowledge). . In the same way, learning to change our way of looking and seeing life, a new map or new glasses to interpret the reality of our life, involves knowledge and the application of that knowledge, and it is a path that requires more and more more practice.
Hopefully we want to go through this paradigm shift, this change in vision of life without the need to go through states of pain and suffering.
(Salat Bertran assumed)
¶ My favorite paragraph
Luis Garcia Bory
Altruism
“Strong characters are not derived from not doing wrong but rather from actually doing right. Unselfishness is the badge of human greatness. The highest levels of self-realization are attained by worship and service. The happy and effective person is motivated, not by fear of wrongdoing, but by love of right doing.” (UB 140:4.6)
This is my favorite section of The Urantia Book, for three reasons:
- Contains the most desirable virtue: altruism. And it reveals to us that promoting this virtue in our daily lives opens the path to spiritual greatness as human beings.
- At the same time, it creates a clear association of the meaning of such greatness with the highest levels of human action: worship and service.
- Finally, it links said greatness, happiness and the effectiveness of having a strong character, based on the conscious decision to love doing good.
This would lead us to conclude that building a spiritually strong character requires us to choose love as the source of inspiration for our daily altruistic service. Service based on sincere intentions to do good, arising from emerging divine guidance in the practice of daily worship.
¶ Urantia Questionnaire: Marisé Cantero
I live in a small city in the province of La Coruña called Narón and which is close to Ferrol, the city where I was born. Although I was born in Ferrol, I grew up in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and in San Fernando (Cádiz). When I returned to Ferrol at the age of 17, I felt tremendously unhappy because my youthful friends stayed in San Fernando. I have a partner and a 13-year-old son.
- How did you get to The Urantia Book and why do you think you found it?
I came to The Urantia Book because for years I searched for alternative books and information to what I received from my academic and religious catechetical training. After a few years studying Law, I dropped out due to a deep existential crisis, I had a near-death experience and, furthermore, Law had not been what I initially thought it would be for a long time. I left it in fourth and went to a Diploma that had many things in common with History, which was what I would have really liked to start at university. I finished my diploma and went to work and got married. During all these years I would drop a book or find information that was always pseudo-academic that I found through unofficial channels, which was opening my mind and making me interested in knowing what they don’t tell you at school or in catechism. Although you know inside that there is something else or intuition, I don’t know. I read books by J.J. Benítez, in addition to learning about Caballos there was a book that marked me a lot: Lucifer’s Rebellion. I also bought books on the apocryphal gospels, Gnostic Christians, the Cathars, the Knights Templar, Mary Magdalene and Jesus and the Holy Grail… All the legends that could exist around Christianity interested me, I was always a lover of mythology (Greek, Roman, Nordic, Celtic, Egyptian) and ancient history. Since I was little I have believed a lot in Jesus as my friend, my brother, my teacher and my creator who is close to me but often silent… without speaking, with whom I have not spoken many times out of shame, and also with whom I have angry many times for his silence… or maybe it’s my stubbornness and foolishness. Finally, after five years of being a mother, around 2014 I discovered The Urantia Book on the internet, on Facebook and on YouTube, in addition to being a regular on JJ Benítez’s website. I didn’t buy the book until a few months later.
- What was your first impression when reading it?
At that time I was in a bad personal moment and I felt when I read it that it was the answer to what I always looked for and cried. I bought the Latin American edition on Amazon, and I still didn’t know anything about the Spanish association of book readers. I started reading the headings that caught my attention, I didn’t read in order but what I wanted, a huge book and so much information within reach… I haven’t read it all yet. I found the book because I searched for it, I guess, and because I needed it like hell.
¶ About the Light and Life newsletter
Light and Life is the newsletter of the Urantia Association of Spain. From 2005 to 2016 it was published in PDF format and distributed by mail and email to the association’s reader list, but it is currently distributed in newsletter format from content in HTML format.
If you want to receive the newsletter in your email, contact the association to subscribe to the mailing list.
All papers and news from readers and study groups are welcome, so if you want to share any side work, writing, outline, image, etc., you can send it to the association and we will publish it previous evaluation of its suitability. Likewise, the Communication commission of the board of directors of the Urantia Association of Spain reserves the right to edit it so that it meets minimum spelling quality.
¶ References
- Article of the Magazine Light and Life Online: https://aue.urantia-association.org/newsletter/luz-y-vida-enero-2023/